Panel: Santa Ana should seek purchase of orchard

SANTA ANA – Santa Ana should look for a way of purchasing the Sexlinger farmhouse and orchard, a city panel is recommending.

The city Historic Resources Commission made that recommendation Thursday, and incorporated into its suggestion several ways that a purchase could be accomplished.

The property should be saved, preservationists with the Old Orchard Conservancy contend, because of its characteristics – a productive Valencia orchard with some 230 trees sitting alongside the five-acre property's original residence, built in 1913 and dating from an era when small-scale citrus growers helped shape Southern California's culture and economy.

The group, which has been seeking to raise the funds for a purchase, came to the commission with several options to accomplish that, such as the city purchasing and managing the site, or the either loaning the conservancy the funds or guaranteeing a loan to it.

"We have not been successful in securing funds to purchase the property," said Jeannie Gillett, president of the conservancy. "A public-private partnership would seem to work best at this point, unless an angel comes along and gives us millions of dollars."

Nick Spain, a board member of the conservancy, has said that the land, if kept agricultural, would be worth about $2 million, based on comparisons with similar-sized agricultural parcels in Southern California, and that the asking price is "significantly higher."

Gillett said the conservancy hopes to come up with a plan in which a working orchard at the site would pay for the costs associated with preserving it. The City Council in June placed the property on the Santa Ana Register of Historical Properties.

A staff report from the city Planning and Building Agency listed more than two dozen potential funding sources, but each proved fruitless, or far from adequate. The conservancy said acquisition would cost in the millions of dollars.

The late Martha Sexlinger, the last member of the family to live on the property, donated it to Concordia University Foundation and Orange Lutheran High School.

The owners' plan has been to seek city approval to develop the property with 24 single-family homes. The property is on the 1500 block of East Santa Clara Avenue near Portola Park. The city Planning Commission is expected to take up the residential project Feb. 11, followed by the council in March.

Alberta Christy, a former councilwoman who serves on the commission, said she appreciated the thinking and effort that both the conservancy and city staff have put into looking for ways to acquire the property.

"This is one that we want to preserve as much as we possibly can so that people in the future know how important that industry was – the orange industry in Orange County," she said.